


Bate

by redtailedhawk90



Series: There Is Nothing To Blame On The Mirror [3]
Category: The Room Where It Happened (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Drabble, M/M, Spoilers through episode 10
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-05
Updated: 2019-02-05
Packaged: 2019-10-22 21:38:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17670572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redtailedhawk90/pseuds/redtailedhawk90
Summary: /bāt/Verb(of a hawk) beat the wings in an attempt to escape from the perch.Tseer revisits an old dream, and it becomes a nightmare.





	Bate

It was weird, to dream about a dream.  But the vision that they all had shared at When You Wish Upon A Star had been less a dream and more a series of alternate timelines, merged violently with the one he lived in now.  Tseer still had the ghosts of memories--all of which had seemed so sharp and clear at the time--of a war that never was. He could feel the mud between his talons and the exhaustion in his bones.

So when he revisited the scenes in his sleep, they felt just as real as they had when he and his friends had been under Fuku’s thrall.  They were the only good dreams he had anymore.

_ Vreeeeeeeew! _

Tseer ducked down into the trench when he heard the mortar coming.  It exploded, green and black and pulsing, and rained thick clumps of wet, hot dirt down onto his back.  He shook his feathers to rid himself of the debris as best he could and peered back over the edge.

There were thousands of them.  A vast line of shambling, unfeeling undead stretched hundreds of yards wide and farther deep than Tseer could see.  It would be less than an hour before they advanced far enough for their mortars to reach the trenches where Luume’s last defense huddled.

This war had been going on for months, and they had been losing ground steadily ever since they had lost the Father Commander.  Tseer itched with the need to do something. The longer they sat here, listening to the squelching thud of the mortars, the more demoralized they got.

Lieutenant Blackmoor had come to the same conclusion.  There was nowhere left to retreat. She rallied their platoon, and they climbed out as one into the pockmarked morass between them and the waiting lines of the undead.  Orron led their mages in forming a cloud of fog to confuse the enemy trebuchets.

It could only do so much.  

Soldiers fell around them, screaming in pain as they were reduced to ash by the mortars--or worse, dealt a glancing blow and consumed slowly by the creeping black energy as it spread across their bodies.  Tseer took to the air. Flying this low to the ground was laborious, but faster and easier than running through the sticky mud.

And so it was that he hit the front lines of the enemy alongside Tessa.  They were a blur of violence, fighting back to back against the horde. A bolt of blue and silver energy announced Seshmir’s arrival into the fray, and a boom of thunder told Tseer that Orron wasn’t far behind.  Corra arrived with the rearguard, a medic flitting from soldier to soldier, offering healing and reinforcement where she could.

It was impossible to tell if they were making any headway. They could only keep pressing forward in the hopes that they would break out the other side of of the necromancer’s footsoldiers.  If they could reach the back lines, if they could get to wherever he was hiding, they could end this once and for all.

In the waking world, Tseer had had weeks to mull over this dream and its meaning.  When You Wish Upon A Star was a dream den, a place where your deepest desires were given life and form.  This war against a necromancer’s army had been Tessa’s creation, stifled as she was in her role as a figurehead, but this battle?  The last stand against a seemingly unstoppable foe, defending the place where he grew up?

If he were more aware in his current dream state, he would recognize that the hammering of his heart in his chest was only partly fear.

They fought for what felt like hours until slowly, the suffocating mass of the undead thinned.  The necromancer was pressing his attack, moving his pawns forward as Luume’s forces made their last assault--a grisly race to see who would tire first.  But Tseer and his platoon had made it through, and that meant they had a chance.

Enemy mortars still thundered as the platoon advanced on the shack. Intended as a temporary shelter for the necromancer and his generals, but it stood unguarded now.  The forest around it was dry and brittle, drained by magic to fuel the undead army. At Tseer’s touch, the door swung open, and there was the necromancer, sitting cross-legged on the floor in the middle of a huge sigil. He hastily stood and raised a hand out in front of himself, but before he could release the sickly green ball of energy that formed there, Tseer dashed forward and delivered a swift kick under his jaw.  He followed it up with a series of punches to the necromancer’s torso, knocking him backwards and through the flimsy back wall of the shack.

The necromancer landed heavily and scrambled backwards, trying to get away.  Before he got far, his retreat was blocked by Tessa, who had circled around. Fury rolled off of her in waves. With no hesitation or ceremony, she drove her blade into his heart, pinning him to the ground. There was a flutter of limbs, and a brief, futile gasp, and then he was dead.

The dream  _ shifted _ , and then Tseer was in the air, flying back over the battlefield.  Beneath him, he saw the necromancer’s army crumbling to dust at the brink of Luume’s trenches.  They had done it. They had stopped them before they reached the city outskirts. Before they got to all the farms--to his parents’ farm.

Wait.

Icy dread slid down Tseer’s throat to pool in his stomach, slicing through the elation and excitement that filled him moments before.  He beat his wings as fast as he could, using every flight trick he knew to squeeze out every second of speed, hoping that his eyes deceived him, and at the same time knowing that they did not.

Every farm he passed was undamaged, every family whole and healthy.  But up ahead, his parents’ farm was burning.

_ This isn’t how it-- _

Smoke stung his eyes and seized his lungs as he landed.  He hit the ground running, slamming open the door to his family’s house as he cried out, “Mom!  Dad!” He could barely breathe as he went from room to room, but the house was empty. Maybe they had made it out?  He stumbled back towards the exit, but a figure blocked the way.

The figure was tall, and lean.  Fire rolled off of him like water, pouring from his eyes, from his hair, off his fingertips.  And he was laughing.

_ No, I saved them, I was the hero. _

Tseer was paralyzed with fear--or was it something else?  The fire licked at his feathers and kissed his skin, and still Wyatt laughed.  Clenching his fists and screaming, Tseer charged. The roof above him creaked, groaned, and gave way as he reached for Wyatt’s throat.  He felt his talons dig in to soft flesh and--

Tseer woke.  The house was quiet and still and dark.  His parents’ home still stood, undamaged and comforting, around him.  He ruffled his feathers and stepped off of his perch, trying to shake off the sensation of being burned alive.  Trudging to the kitchen, he pointedly ignored his parents’ empty bedroom and instead poured himself a glass of water and sat heavily at the dining table.  

He held the cool ceramic tightly between his talons.  He focused on his breathing. He listened to the house settling.  Slowly, the dream faded, and with it, the feeling of panic. Fuku had created the war and the necromancer’s army.  His parents were safe somewhere in another city. Wyatt was still alive and probably was going to kill them all someday, but they had survived his first assassination attempt, and would likely survive more.  It was all just a dream.

Tseer thought about standing in the middle of a different burning building, facing Wyatt.  He thought about fear and indecision. He thought about hesitation.

Would Wyatt still be alive, if Tseer had acted in that trailer?  Would Broderick? Would his parents be back in their home, instead of starting a whole new life with nothing, if, instead of thinking of himself and his feelings, he had jumped forward and attacked?

With a cry of frustration, he stood and hurled the cup at the fireplace.  It hit the mantle and shattered, sending water and shards of ceramic flying.  Tseer panted, his chest heaving with anger. But it was short lived, and after it had run its course, it left him feeling empty.  He picked up a broom and began to sweep up the mess.

He would make up for his failure.  He would hunt Wyatt down and kill him, and put things to right.  

Maybe then he could forgive himself.


End file.
